What's in a name?

Beautiful flower or musical group?

My classical music trio has a problem. We’re ready to market our group as a band for hire, but we can’t agree what to call ourselves. If we spent half as much time practicing our music as we’ve put into thinking of a name, we’d be playing Carnegie Hall instead of trolling for wedding gigs.

I‘ve always thought naming a band would be fun, especially a rock band. O, to be a carefree rock band! They can practically use a random word generator and take any combination. If the resulting name’s a little puzzling, so much the better.

“Dude, we’re going to see Redundant Radish tonight.”

“Cool. I saw them last year with Piranhas Can’t Count. They rocked.”

But it’s different with classical music, especially if you’re hoping to entice a bride-to-be to get out her checkbook.

Our first impulse was to play off the fact that, as classical musicians, we always wear black when we perform. We briefly considered “Babes in Black,” until my kids rolled their eyes so far back in their heads I thought I’d have to call 911.

We took a different tack. Perhaps our name should convey information about our instruments. Our trio consists of piano, violin and cello. This venerable combination is properly known as a piano trio. I can’t imagine why, when clearly the cello is the most important instrument in the group.

Did I mention I play cello?

Anyway, I wouldn’t blame our non-musician customers if they thought a piano trio was composed of three pianos. Logistical concerns alone would put us out of the running for most gigs. Imagine the following dialogue:

“Honey, here’s an ad for a piano trio.”

“Where’s the wedding party going to stand if we have to find room for three instruments the size of Volkswagons? Besides, transporting three pianos is going to cost a mint. Hey, here’s a flute player. Problem solved.”

We decided the ideal name would mention our stringed instruments while evoking elegance and celebration. If it suggested a graphic we could put on posters and business cards, that would be a bonus.

For awhile we were partial to “Black Orchid Classical Strings.” Elegance? Check. Reference to stringed instruments? Check. Cool graphic possibilities? Check. It even traded on the sophistication of the color black.

We thought we had a winner until our pianist Googled Black Orchid and got a bunch of porn hits. I couldn’t duplicate her results. For all I know she searched “Black Orchid XXX,” but the bloom was off the rose – I mean the orchid – for her after that, and she wanted nothing more to do with that name.

We racked our brains for wedding images. I suggested “Champagne Strings,” thinking it conjured joyful celebration, but my fellow musicians thought some customers might be put off by the alcohol reference.

We considered working “lace” into the name somehow to evoke refinement and fancy wedding clothes. That seemed promising enough until we added our favorite adjective “black,” dramatically increasing the potential for racy hits when run through a search engine. We nixed it.

Then we thought about velvet connoting elegance and luxury. Unfortunately, any name involving “Black Velvet” leads us right back to alcohol.

Frankly, at this point I’m ready to abandon all my ideas about elegant connotations and wedding imagery. All we really want to do is market ourselves so we can get some paying gigs. Maybe we should just go for truth-in-advertising and call ourselves “Shameless Capitalists In Black.” That should fit on a business card.